Child Online Protection, TikTok, and the Limits of Global Digital Governance
Behind the scenes of a new policy research paper
I’m back from a short break and travel through northern Italy and Slovenia. I had initially imagined that my first post of 2026 might be a quiet travel reflection, a return to beauty after a demanding year. Instead, I was welcomed by a different kind of news.
At the end of January, my peer-reviewed policy research paper, “Navigating Child Online Protection in Indonesia: International Norms, Local Realities, and the TikTok Factor,” was published in Digital Society, a journal by Springer Nature. Given the current state of the world and the accelerating pressure on digital governance systems, it felt more responsible to begin the year by sharing work that speaks directly to these challenges.
Rather than summarizing the paper, I want to share some of the thinking behind it, the questions that shaped it, and the limits of what academic formats can capture.
This post is therefore not a travelogue from my holiday, but a short introduction to the research, its motivations, and its implications.
It is also an invitation to look at digital governance not as an abstract framework, but as something that directly shapes everyday lives.
1. Why this policy oriented research
This paper grew out of several years of professional engagement at the intersection of development policy and digital governance. In particular, my work as an expert on child online protection initiatives with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), including close collaboration with the ITU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, exposed me to the practical realities of implementing global norms in diverse local contexts.
Indonesia was one of the six countries where I worked directly with national and regional stakeholders. What became immediately clear is that child online protection frameworks, while often coherent at the international level, encounter complex political, cultural, and institutional negotiations once they reach the ground. Capacity gaps, regulatory fragmentation, economic interests, and digital platforms power all shape how protection is understood and enforced.
In many discussions, the frameworks were present and the language was correct, yet responsibility often dissolved once concrete action was required.
This experience motivated a deeper inquiry into how global digital governance models actually function in practice, rather than how they are assumed to function on paper.
The paper emerged from this tension between normative ambition and institutional reality.
2. Indonesia, TikTok, and youth vulnerability
Indonesia is one of the largest TikTok markets in the world, alongside the United States. The platform plays a central role in the everyday digital lives of young people, shaping not only cultural expression but also economic participation, visibility, and aspiration.
The paper examines how TikTok’s platform dynamics intersect with Indonesia’s regulatory environment and demographic structure. While TikTok offers opportunities for creativity and income generation, it also amplifies risks related to child labor, exploitation, harmful content exposure, and opaque monetization practices involving minors.
These risks are often normalized because they sit at the intersection of entertainment, informality, and platform-driven visibility.
These issues are not limited to Southeast Asia. Similar patterns have been observed across parts of Africa and other regions, where platform expansion often outpaces regulatory capacity. I have previously written and spoken about these dynamics, including in public commentary on youth labor, platform economies, and emerging forms of digital exploitation.
A key argument of the paper is that international child online protection norms do not travel intact. They are interpreted, negotiated, and reconfigured within specific geopolitical and institutional settings. As a result, protection becomes uneven, fragmented, and often reactive.
This is not a failure of intent, but a structural feature of how global digital governance currently operates.
3. Policy challenges and recommendations
The research identifies several structural challenges. First, there is a persistent gap between international normative frameworks and national enforcement mechanisms. Second, platform governance remains largely driven by corporate self-regulation, with limited transparency and accountability. Third, child online protection policies frequently lag behind rapidly evolving platform features and monetization models.
In response, the paper proposes a set of policy recommendations aimed at policymakers and regulators. These include strengthening regional cooperation, investing in institutional capacity building, improving data access for regulators, and developing child-centered risk assessment models that reflect local realities rather than imported assumptions.
The emphasis is less on new rules, and more on making existing frameworks operational and enforceable.
Most importantly, the research argues for moving beyond universal templates. Effective digital governance requires contextual adaptation, continuous dialogue with local stakeholders, and a clear recognition of power asymmetries between states, platforms, and users.
Without this, child online protection risks remaining a formal commitment rather than a lived reality.
The full article is available open access here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44206-025-00244-0
This felt like the right place to begin 2026. Not with distance or decoration, but with work that tries to stay close to the fractures we are collectively navigating.
Danica Radovanović, digital inclusion expert, policy advisor, and author.
These essays reflect her own perspectives.